Ignatian Meditation: The Balm

When Bryan Stevenson came to our college, he spoke into a crowded gymnasium of  students, faculty and staff. Like Jesus in the Gospel who calls Levi to “follow me,” Bryan called to us to get “proximate” that day.

 Getting “proximate,” according to Bryan, is moving close to the dark places of our society where people are in need of our healing light of truth and hope. Like Levi being called to join the disciples and sit and eat with other sinners, we are each called to bring light to the ones who are far away and in the dark.

 Retreat teams of the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative visit the Monroe Correctional Complex in Washington State where we gather with the incarcerated men for prayer and a midday meal.  We listen and share from our hearts in small groups together. We “get proximate” to one another as we seek forgiveness, healing, and the release from what imprisons us.

 In Ordinary Time, we are called to visit the dark places and circumstances that need the light of Jesus, to “begin the work of Christmas,” as Howard Thurman writes,

 “To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among all,
To make music in the heart.”

How are you called to follow, to get “proximate”? In what ways do you seek freedom and release?

 There is a balm in Gilead
    To make the wounded whole;
    There is a balm in Gilead
    To heal the sin-sick soul.

Some times I feel discouraged,
    And think my work’s in vain,
    But then the Holy Spirit
    Revives my soul again.

There is a balm in Gilead
    To make the wounded whole;
    There is a balm in Gilead
    To heal the sin-sick soul.

Jesus went out along the sea.
All the crowd came to him and he taught them.
As he passed by, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus,
sitting at the customs post.
Jesus said to him, “Follow me.”
And he got up and followed Jesus.
While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners sat with Jesus and his disciples;
for there were many who followed him.
Some scribes who were Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with sinners
and tax collectors and said to his disciples,
“Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus heard this and said to them,
“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

Gospel MK 2:13-17